Misrak Polytechnic College

Write Content for Web Page

 Objective

 Plan your web content more effectively

 Approach online writing with more confidence
 Improve the readability of your online text
 Work to agreed editorial standards for web content
 Introduction

 Writing and editing for the web are not the same as for
print.
 Online you need to apply different skills and
techniques to attract and retain your readers, get your
message across effectively and achieve your business
objectives.
 Reading from computer screens is about 25% slower
than reading from paper and usually say that they find
reading online text unpleasant.
 Why is writing for the web different?
 Studies have shown that people are less likely to read
long pieces of text on a web page than in printed
format.
 So, how do people read websites? The answer is:
they:
skim, scan, and select
browse before foraging
take quick glances and occasional very brief stops
read a little at a time, mostly in short burst
grab what they need and get on towards the goal
 Cont.

 For these reasons, it is rarely appropriate to cut and

paste from a printed document to produce an
identical web version
Planning your web content: before you begin
writing, you’ll need to plan out the content you
need and think about its purpose and objectives
Writing your web content: advice and examples
for how to write specifically for a web audience
 Measuring your web content: once you’ve published
your content, you’ll want to make sure it’s working for
you in the way you’ve hoped
 Planning your web content
 Planning your web content Generally speaking, your
web content is useless unless it does one or both of
the following:
supports a key business objective (eg promotes the
university; encourages students to apply)

supports a user in completing a task (eg provides

the user with the information they were looking
for; helps a student to apply)
 Cont.
 So, how do you make sure that all your content is
useful? Before you start writing, you need to:
prepare to create less content
define your content structure

 Prepare to create less content Online, when it comes

to informational, marketing or promotional content,
less is always more because:
less content is easier to manage
less content is more user-friendly
less content costs less to create
 Cont.
 Less content is easier to manage
When we talk about publishing content online, we
often refer to it “going live”.
There are countless ways for web content to die:
dead blogs, outdated descriptions, broken links,
and irrelevant search engine results.
It’s one thing to change brand voice in print and
forget to do it online;
it’s another to neglect content that might mislead
users or even expose us to legal action.
By publishing less content you’ll have less content
to manage.
 Cont.
 Less content is more user-friendly
Users want information quickly.
If they can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll feel
frustrated and resentful, and they’ll leave.
Too much content means information is harder to find.
And that makes it harder for users to complete their task.
 Less content costs less to create
By prioritizing useful and relevant content over “just in
case” content, you’ll free up time and money for things
like planning and measurement.
Scale back on content by making sure that your website
content maps back to key business objectives and user
goals
 cont.
 Define your objectives
Creating new web pages and filling them with text and
images is, technically speaking, really easy. But, just
because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Creating useful, usable content requires research,
strategic planning, meaningful metadata, web writing
skills, and editorial oversight.
Done well, content can build your brand, improve
retention and win loyalty.
Done poorly, it will cause you to lose your audience’s
attention and trust
 Cont.
 Analyzing your objectives is the first step in creating
web content. You must establish:
What exactly do you need to achieve?
Do you simply want to inform your users, or do
you want to persuade, reassure or motivate them
too?
What outcome do you need?
Do you just want your users to “be informed”, or
do you want them to take a particular course of
action?
 Cont.

For every new page you plan to create, you need

ask yourself:
 Why am I creating this page?
What do I want to say?
Does the user need it?
Will they want to read it?
What do I want the user to do after reading it?
 If you can’t answer these questions easily, you need
to rethink the objectives of your content.
 Writing your web content
 This writing for the web guide will help you to write
clear, concise, web-friendly pages that users will find
useful and easy to read and which can be more easily
retrieved by search engines.
 The five main guidelines for writing for the web are to
make your content:
1. succinct
2. scannable
3. personable
4. actionable
5. searchable
 Cont.

1. Succinct(concise)
 Text that is poorly written or long-winded will deter
readers and could create a bad impression towards
the objective.
 Try to write in plain English that is accurate,
consistent and concise.
 Front-load your content
 “Front-loading” your content means putting the
conclusion first, followed by the what, how, where,
when and why. This allows users to:
 quickly scan through the opening sentence
 instantly understand what the paragraph is about
 Cont.
 The opening paragraph on every page should focus on
answering two questions:
 What? (What will users find on this page? What is its
function?)
 Why? (Why should they care? What’s in it for them?)
 Newspaper articles are good examples of front-loaded
content; the opening paragraph is always the conclusion of
the article.
 Your primary information (the main piece of information or
message that you are trying to convey to your user) should
be the first thing the user sees.
 Everything else is secondary information and should
follow later.
 Example
 Set within Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh
campus [secondary], the Centre for Sport and
Exercise offers top quality facilities for a wide range
of sports at a number of different levels [primary]. Incorrect

 The Centre for Sport and Exercise offers top quality

facilities for a wide range of sports at a number of
different levels [primary]. It is set within the
University’s Edinburgh Campus [secondary].
Correct
 Cont.

Long and detailed background information can

be relegated to the end of the page or moved
on to child pages.
Similarly, information of interest to a minority
of users can be made available through a link
without penalizing those readers who don't
want it.
 Limit each page to one topic
 Don’t make users click through unnecessary pages
when they don’t need to.
 If you genuinely have a lot of content that is too long or
unwieldy on one page, you should split it up over
several pages in a way that makes sense.
 New pages shouldn’t be created just to segment a long
linear story into multiple pages; having to flick through
several pages can be confusing to the reader, slows
down reading and makes printing more difficult.
 Good web content should be split into coherent chunks
that each focus on a certain topic.
 Cont.
 The guiding principle should be to allow readers to select
those topics they care about and only read those pages.
 Use your homepage or landing page to summarize the main
points and put supporting information onto secondary pages,
avoiding repetition and duplication of content on different
pages.
 Don’t state the obvious but do explain
Phrases like “Welcome to the XY Polytechnic College of
XYX website” (when the user has more than likely
searched for or followed a link to that website) or
“These pages have been designed to make your first few
weeks of work with the College easier” (on induction pages
aimed at new staff) don’t tell the user anything they didn’t
already know.
 Cont.
Similarly, it is not necessary to instruct your
readers how to navigate a web page such as “click
here for further details”, “on this website you will
find” or “the links on the left will take you to
further information”.
 Many users will arrive at your web pages by way of a
search engine and they may enter the site at any
point, bypassing your homepage and landing pages in
the process.
 They probably won’t have read all your content in
sequence, so each page must be self explanatory.
 Cont.
 Link to background or explanatory information to help
users, but don’t overdo it; it’s not necessary to link to all
pages in the same section if this is already apparent from
the navigation, for example.
 Don’t repeat what someone else has said (better)
elsewhere
 Keep your pages short and concise by linking out to
secondary information rather than reproducing it on your
pages.
 This is especially true when explaining processes run out
with the College(eg application processes, immigration
rules etc).
 Scan able

 Skimming instead of reading is a fact of the web and

has been confirmed by countless usability studies.
 Users are often impatient and don’t want to read long
continuous blocks of text.
 They will scan text and pick out keywords, sentences,
and paragraphs of interest while skipping over those
parts of the text they care less about.
 Structure your content with headings & subheadings
 Cont.

 Edit long passages of text into shorter paragraphs and

introduce helpful sub-headings to give users an accurate
at-a-glance impression of the page’s content.
 If you’re adapting a printed document or publication,
these sub-headings may not have been present in the
original form but this kind of signposting will be helpful
to a web audience trying to find information in a hurry
 Structure your content using two or even three levels of
headings (a general page heading plus subheads and sub-
subheads when appropriate).
 Cont.
 Nested headings also allow better access for users
with screen readers.
Use lists
 Break up long lists in sentence or paragraph form and
present them as bullet points.
 This will make them easier to read and scan.
 Lists are preferable to long paragraphs because they:
allow users to read the information vertically
rather than horizontally
are easier to scan
are less intimidating
 Personable
 Stodgy paragraphs written in third person are no
longer in fashion.
 The internet has developed into a more personal
communication tool.
 People use the internet to explore in a relaxed nature,
not to feel like they are reading from an encyclopedia.
 We want the website to be somewhere people come to
explore without pressure.
 Being personal means revealing your personality to
the visitor in a subtle way.
 Cont.

This doesn’t mean putting your photo on the

“About us” page; it means writing web content
that conveys our personality.
Use “you” and “we”
You should refer to the University or your
School or service in full in the first instance, but
you should refer to “we” or “us” in subsequent
sentences.
Try to use the language you would use if the
reader was sitting across the desk from you.
 Example
Applicants will be informed when applications
have been processed. Incorrect
We will let you know when your application
has been processed. Correct
Advice is available from Student Services.
Incorrect

You can get more advice from our Student

Services office
Correct
 Active verbs
Adopt an active tone when writing;
it sounds more direct and professional and
helps to build trust with users by reassuring
them that we’re taking ownership of what
we’ve written.
Examples
Applications from mature students are
welcomed. Incorrect

We welcome applications from mature students

Correct
 Talk about benefits, not just features
 Your web content should emphasize the benefits and
not just the features of Institution’s proposition.
 Examples
 MPTC offers courses in a range of subjects.
 Studying at MPTC will enable you to develop skills and
experience to help you achieve you career ambitions.
 At MPTC you will be based on our attractive campus.
 At MPTC you will be part of a supportive community of
like-minded people who share your interests and ambitions
 Focus on the positives
 Always try to emphasize the positive side of things.
 Examples
 You can’t enroll if you don’t send copies of your
qualifications.
 Please send copies of your qualifications so that you can
enroll.
 Most rooms in halls of residence do not have en suite
bathrooms.
 Some rooms in halls of residence have en suite bathrooms
 Be welcoming and friendly
 When communicating with students, it is important to
communicate the supportive, community feel of MPTC,
without being too informal.
 Examples
Any student wishing to transfer to another institute
should complete the application and return it to the
appropriate School or Institute Office for processing.

Once you have started a course at the University we

hope you’ll want to stay with us to finish it. However, if
you have a good academic or personal reason, we will
help you to transfer since other institutions will usually
consider taking you if we give you our formal support
 Actionable
 A call to action answers the unspoken question:
“That’s interesting. Now what?”
 Your user will have a set of tasks in mind and you
should also have these in mind when you are creating
content.
 Does the content of your page allow the user to
achieve what they set out to achieve quickly and
easily?
 If you want your user to do something, tell them what
you want them to do and make it as easy as possible
for them to do it.
 Cont.

 If you want them to fill out a form, tell them where to find it
(provide a link); explain what details they’ll need to provide
and who they’ll need to send it to (give contact details).
 Use parallelisms People like patterns:
 We grasp the information more quickly if we can
anticipate the pattern.
 We try to see patterns in information even when there
are none.
 When we have to switch patterns, we use extra
mental energy.
 This is a useful technique for landing pages, or situations
where users have a choice of action to perform on the page
and you are trying to make sure they make the right choice
 Use descriptive link text
 In the same way that bold text stands out to screen-
scanning web users, so does link text.
 Link text such as “click here” won’t make any sense
out of context, so is useless to site visitors scanning
web pages.
 Instead, you should use a title that describes where
the person will be taken.
 For links that appear in the body of the text, you
should integrate links with your content, making it
part of a sentence, preferably with a clear call to
action
 Searchable

 Writing text with the intention of improving its

chances of retrieval by search engines is the single
biggest difference between writing for print and the
web.
 There are a number of techniques you can use to
improve your pages’ ranking with search engines.
 Title and headlines
 Each page should have a different title that is
meaningful and accurately describes the information
on the page.
 Choose words that are repeated in the body text of the
page and place the most important keywords at the
start of the title
 Examples
 Applying 
 How to apply for postgraduate programs 
 Headings & subheadings

 Increased weight is given to words in your text that

are emphasized by being headings so choose your
headings carefully.
 However, do not use headings inappropriately or too
frequently.
 The objective is that your text should be readable as
well as retrievable.
 Body text
 Try to use the same terms and phrases in your content
as your readers use when they talk or write about the
subject matter in question.
 This will make your pages easier to understand for
the user and have a higher chance of being picked up
in searches.
 Hyperlinks

Hyperlinked text is given added weight by search

engine spiders so try to avoid the “click here”
convention referred to earlier.
Always hyperlink the relevant words even if that
means you need to re-word your sentence to
accommodate those keywords.
 Cont.

Keywords and page description

Try to use the words a user would enter when
searching.
Avoid obscure terms, oblique or ambiguous
expressions, and puns.
Keep it simple.
Include your most important keywords in your opening
sentence, repeating or using variants, if possible.
For search engine success there is no substitute for
relevant content.
 Check grammar
 Grammar and spelling are important for the same
reasons as consistency.
 Your content is important so follow the rules to make
sure you get your message across.
 Remember, you may well be writing for users for
whom English is a second language.
 Non-standard use of English can only confuse users.
Think globally
 Remember that your website can be accessed by
everyone in the world with a modem, so choose both
appropriate content and words.
 Use of images
 Although having images on a web page suits most
web users' style of reading, they should be used
relatively sparingly, especially on higher-level pages.
 Images can be large files, and increase page
download time.
 It is up to the author to decide whether the illustrative
value of an image outweighs the disadvantage of
longer download times.
 Images should always be associated with your text.
 Provide a call to action

 All useful web content drives an action and should

end with a call to action, such as a link, a phone
number, a form, etc.
 After reading a good piece of web content the reader
should either know something they didn't know
before, or be able to do something they couldn't do
before.
 Measuring your web content

 Now that you’ve planned out your content, written it

and published it to the website, the next step is to
monitor it to make sure it’s achieving the goals you
set out in the first stage.
 Measuring your web content is done in several ways:
 Reviews and updates
 Accepting feedback
 Analyzing web statistics
 User testing
 Reviews & updates
 Forthcoming events, latest news, statistics and
examples must be refreshed regularly.
 If users see out-of-date information they will lose trust
in the site and become suspicious of the rest of the
content.
 Build it into your workflow to regularly monitor your
site for out of date content.
 Remove anything that is redundant and update
anything that is timely.
 Check that any new content added still makes sense
and meets your objectives
 Accepting feedback
 There is a “Suggest an improvement to this page” link at the
bottom of every page.
 When clicked, this takes the user to a simple form where
they can explain what improvements they’d like to see on
that page (e.g. “contact information”).
Analyzing web statistics
 We use Google Analytics to monitor visits to the website.
 The Web Team can generate regular reports for you and
offer advice on how to read the report and act on the results.
 Please contact [email protected] to discuss your ideas.
 User testing

 User testing can be done in several ways to make sure

that users are finding the information they need.
 You might want to hold user testing sessions by
giving a group of users a set of the web team will
work with you to carry out user testing.
 Please contact [email protected] to discuss your
ideas
 How can put site content in a web page
 We can put data or information on a web page using
either of the two ways
 From Scratch
 Using web page management tools
 Using Templates
 From Scratch: Programmer place each contents in a
web pages as he/she and/or client want.
 Web page management tools are well organized type of
content management which enable the site administrator to put
content easily. Example: Wordpress, Drupal, etc…
 Identifying relevant templates
 Its better if you do a website from scratch. Due to the
customizability, time and cost dedicated for the
project templates may be preferred.
 Templates are web content, framework for your work.
 Identifying relevant templates and styles guides
according to organizational procedures and client
requirements are needed.
 Write site content
 From Scratch: Put the following content in your
pages.
Demonstration PHP